Americans love a good losing streak. We thrill at the improbability of it. We ogle the emotional wreckage like it was a 23-car pileup. In a nation that usually roots for the underdog, sometimes we just want them to get pummeled -- again, and again, and again. Until it seems they can't possibly lose another, which of course they do, and then we quietly cheer.

Baseball has produced some monumental and memorable losing streaks. Longtime fans of the following teams still carry the memories of these streaks like scars. World Series championships come and go, but the slow burn of a 20-game losing streak is seared into the heart forever. You can't escape the nagging fear that the impossible will somehow happen again, and a month of summer with pass without a "W."

And now, our list of the five longest losing streaks in baseball history, starting with a summer at the turn of the 20th century that Bostonians would rather forget.